


Ghost in the Shell

by spinmetal



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Forsaken, Gen, Ghost!Cayde, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Torture, Written at 1am, fixit, no editing I publish my crappy fixit like the dumbass I am
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 07:16:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16113506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinmetal/pseuds/spinmetal
Summary: Sol looses everything. And gains so much more.





	Ghost in the Shell

**Author's Note:**

> "Third floor balcony above the alley. Loved that spot... hope the Fallen haven't got to it."

 

There's a Ghost that's taken to following her around. It is small with a plain white shell, unmarred by scratches and unmarked by weather. Sol did not think there would be new Ghosts made so long after the Traveler's death but perhaps this Ghost is a result of the Traveler's awakening. It would be the first she's heard, but it's hardly surprising news. With the Traveler awake, Light itself is evolving with Guardians. Nothing is as it was before.

Half-gloved fingers tighten around the grip of a hand canon over the Spade etched in it. She takes a deep breath, counts to four, lets it out slowly. The Ghost watches her, ever silent.

“It's been three months since the Reef,” she begins, checking the safety on the Ace of Spades. “And the Hunters still don't have a Vanguard.”

She lets her words linger in the air, muttering them under her breath. A pang of something- sorrow, loneliness, devastation, she can't name, hits her in the chest. Takes the breath out of her. Breathe, she reminds herself. Just breathe. No need to have a breakdown that could've been avoided. Sol holds the Ace of Spades in both hands, feeling its weight, lets out a controlled breath and starts dissembling it.

“Vanguard’s falling apart. Guardians too. Big divide between Guardians. Big divide between Vanguard. Big divide between Vanguard and Guardians,” she tells Ace, carefully placing each piece on her work bench. The Ghost hovers by her elbow, watches her take apart the handcannon and hold each piece with the love and care with which one would handle a child. She sets Ace in their cradle. Turns her attention to the disassembled pieces on the cleaning pad.

“With the power vacuum and division, the factions've been scrambling t'turn Cayde's death into propaganda. Big themselves up n’ gain support, sway.” Utility brush in hand, she gently scrubs dirt from the disassembled parts, taking care to be thorough in her cleaning. “Dead Orbit's been making waves. Tryna rally people by seeding fear. We're all gonna die so let's die faster out there, is their thinking. People are afraid. They're listening t'Orbit. It's like a revolution.”

With a quiet hum, she sprays a cotton pad with solvent, running a pad over each piece until the pads come away white. Holding each piece up to the light, she turns them over in her fingers, examining them with critical eyes. Satisfied, she sets aside the disassembled parts and turns her focus to Ace, sitting comfortably in their cradle.

“Remember the Voice of Riven? Well turns out, Riven's an Ahamkara. Wish dragon that can alter reality, grant any wish. Thought they'd all been killed long ago in the Hunt, but turns out there was one in the Dreaming City. Riven. The last Ahamkara,” she informs Ace, soaking a cotton pad with solvent and spearing it with a jag. Cradling the barrel, she gently threads the jag through Ace's bore, pulling it through and changing cotton pads before repeating the action. “Petra asked the Guardians to take Riven out. Full fireteam went in for the raid. Made it out safe, but now the Dreaming City is Taken. Riven granted one last wish before she died.”

Five black cotton pads lie on the corner of the cleaning pad. Sol picks up a brass bore brush, twirling it around her fingers before inserting it into the bore, loosening up any stubborn fouling and dirt before going back to swabbing the bore with solvent soaked cotton pads. She makes a rhythm of it, falling quiet as she cleans. Her jaw tightens, uncertain if she should air her next words and unwilling acknowledge the truth of them. The next patch comes away white and she begins to pack up her tools to conclude her maintenance.  A quick check around reveals none of the parts have rolled away or onto the floor. Good. She sits cross-legged, hands in her lap and waits for the bore to dry.

“I lost Ghosty,” she admits softly. Now that she's said the words, she's hit by a pang of grief and loneliness, as though the acknowledgement is what makes Ghosty's death real. “Raider. Right after rezzing me and…”

She looks away, leans on the windowsill like a crutch. Her eyes are red and her hands curl into shaking fists. She ignores the heavy gaze of the Ghost beside her. Tears sting her eyes and she lifts her gaze, taking controlled breaths and blinking them away.

“Just one thing after another, huh Ace?” she says when she's confident her voice won't tremble. The Ghost's shell whirls as it presses against her arm and when she offers her palm, it settles comfortably in her hand. She doesn't restrain her small, sad smile. “At least I've got you, don't I little buddy? You and Ace.”

And the Queen and the memory of Cayde-6 and a pair of Lucky Pants that weren't lucky when she needed luck most. She cradles the Ghost to her chest the same way she would her lost companion, tilting her head when its cones twitch they way a Ghost's does when it's trying to find the right words to say. When it goes still, sagging in her hands, she looks out the window and lets time slip by.

-

She wakes with a crick in her neck and arms. Her hands are empty. A quick glance down reveals the Ghost lying motionless in her lap, it's single eye dark. Someone rolls around in their sleep. Huh. Sol rubs sleep from her eyes and checks Ace's bore, humming in approval when she finds it's dry. She takes her time putting Ace back together, working to the rhythm of loud cricket songs. The Ghost is still fast asleep when she is done. Not wanting to wake it, she sets Ace back in its cradle and leans against the windowsill, watching darkness slowly creep over gold and purple swathes of sky. Every now and then a rabbit runs across the road below and a sparrow flies down past, to the Outskirts or the Church. There is a stillness about dusk that is freeing, a certain tranquility in the quiet between public events that makes Sol's soul sing. It makes loss a little easier to bear.

Night falls over the EDZ and Sol's eyes turn heavenward, picking out recognisable constellations strewn across the sky. It is cold. She glances at the bed ten steps away, then at the Ghost in her lap. It rolls over, cones twitching. It's optic is still dark. Sol turns her gaze to the stars.

-

Cayde's voice fills her dreams. When she wakes, a bright blue glow fills her gaze and the shock of seeing (what she thought was) his eyes, stays her reflex to strike the source. The Ghost, hovering the inches from her face pulls away when she tenses up, shell whirling as it hovers over the datapad at the corner of the table.

Sol yawns, tongue and teeth bared like a cat, and reaches for the datapad. Turns it on. The screen flashes with a priority message and she winces, turning down the brightness and rubbing sleep from her eyes as she checks the message.

_**Seeking original scout from reconnaissance on Mars, Elias Drake Zimmer.** _

_**— Ruvik Afiell** _

She looks out the window sharply, leaping to her feet. Fear and fury beat the war drum in her chest and her mind sounds a clarion. The cloudless sky is awash with red and gold, the stillness of night receeding from the streets as bird song fills the air. Sol's hand clenches into a shaking fist, as she stares at the rising sun. Sunblind eyes land on the pile of armour in the corner of the room, untouched for weeks. Tears sting her eyes and hard, cold metal presses against her cheek. Sol cups a hand around the Ghost, leaning into its touch as she lets the tears fall. She gives herself two minutes, then dons her armour with practiced movements, as if she'd never stopped wearing it, and lifts Ace from the cradle, sliding it into her holster.

"For Cayde," she whispers, turning her gaze to the sun and the Ghost shudders at her words. "For Cayde."

-

Sol does not want to die.

Electricity crackles, sending her flying into a wall and she chokes back a scream of pain at the crack of bones. Fire creeps up her cloak and she tears it off, stamping it out and rolling around to extinguish the flames licking her armour. Blood seeps down her side and her mind is sluggish, as though she's on the brink of sleep. She stares up at patched of bioluminescent moss on the cave's ceiling and thinks of all she has done and all she has yet to do.

Sol does not want to die, but if her death ensures the Fanatic's she will face it without hesitation or fear. Her HUD lights up and a detonator materialises in her hands. As does the Ghost.

"Sorry buddy," she says quietly, her words barely heard over the Scorned Baron's heavy steps. "It's been fun. See you on the other side."

A large hand grabs her neck and she struggles instinctively, hands flying to its wrist in an attempt to relieve some pressure. The Fanatic crushes her neck slowly, saying words she lets flow over her like a stream. Sol bares her teeth and activates the detonator.

The world goes up in flames.

-

"No! No please!"

Cayde screams as the Hangman rips him apart, savouring his pain and terror like rate delicacies and Sol screams with him, powerless to do anything but watch. The Hangman looks at her then and the kinderguardian tries to scramble backward, halted by the chains weighing her down. The Baron stalks towards her and Cayde struggles against his bonds.

"No- _please_! You already took my Ghost, don't take her too- **Please**!"

The Hangman's hands run over hers with unimaginable gentleness and Sol bites back a whimper as she tries to writhe out of his grip. The Scorned Baron looks straight at Cayde, and he break fingers. One. By. One.

Whatever Cayde says is drowned by her screaming and when her forearm shatters in the Baron's grip, she flails wildly. Light builds in her palm, the prelude to a grenade  
and she releases it, blasting the Baron away and scrambling backward as she -

\- comes to with a gasp, tears in her eyes and a sob in her throat, Cayde's glowing gaze bathing her in blue and cold, hard metal pressing into the crook of her neck as he thanks the powers that be for her reawakening.

Sol's mind struggles to catch up.

But when it does, she cups both hand around the Ghost pressed against her pulse, pressing sloppy kisses to his shell as she hugs him best she can. And she cries. Tears of sorrow for all that's been lost, tears of joy for all that's been found and _howls_ at the moon with all the breath in her lungs and it sounds like a second chance.

Her armour is in ruins and her cloak is in tatters but the ghost of her Vanguard is by her side and with him, she can climb any mountain, blaze any trail, fight any foe and take any jump without fearing the fall. She can live again.

She screams to the stars and this time Cayde's voice joins hers.

And it sounds like victory.  
And it sounds like hope.  
And it sounds like a new beginning.

-

"Gotta say, love what you've done with the place- you got a real knack for interior design, yknow kid?"

"I do now," she says, tone indulgent. "Hold still, Cayde. Need to get this detail right."

"Look I appreciate what you're doing but could you, maybe, find something else to do this with? This is- this is really ticklish."

"I'm almost done," Sol promises cupping a hand around the Ghost in her lap. She brings the fine liner back to Cayde's shell with a steady hand. "Just gotta colour in. "

Cayde manages to stay still for a grand total of five (5) seconds before squirming hard enough to knock the marker out of Sol's hand.

"Okay, that's it. That's all we're getting done today."

White cones twitch and he floats up in front of her, shell spinning as he poses for extra effect.

"How'd I look?"

Sol looks at Cayde, white shell scuffed and scratched by battle, a lone black spade on one of his cones. She smiles.

"Like you're the best looking Ghost this side of Saturn."

"Good answer."

 

**Author's Note:**

> the line about the Ghost is canon. it's from the nameless guardian in the savathun's song strike we don't get to save and it ruined me when I heard it.  
> also it's now 1:40am and I'm tired  
> alsoalso u get bonus points for figuring out the coded message I spent and entire hour putting it together and I'm v proud of it


End file.
